Album Review

By mixing Bruce Springsteen’s bravado with Warped Tour punk, AM Taxi covers much of the same ground as the Gaslight Anthem, right down to the rough, Paul Westerberg-styled vocals that both groups employ. We Don’t Stand a Chance is the band’s major-label debut, and it makes no attempt to hide its influences. Frontman Adam Krier (fresh from his stint with Lucky Boys Confusion, another local Chicago group) is proud of his Springsteen fandom, and he conjures up a world populated by many of the same characters that once inhabited the streets, bars, and cars of Born to Run. Subscribing to the “fight or flight” mentality, he splits his subjects into two groups: those who stay in their hometown, either out of love for one of its residents or the simple inability to leave, and those who seize the day by escaping the city limits, often in a car with the radio cracked high. “We hang like question marks at the end of every dream/I’d rather be a fugitive than die here in between,” he rasps during “Dead Street,” the album’s lead-off track and a veritable 21st century adaptation of “Badlands.” Apart from the occasional piano progression or organ chord, though, We Don’t Stand a Chance is a stripped-down album, one that’s more focused on lean punk rock than the orchestrated arrangements Springsteen brought to some of his material. The result is a kinetic record that swings for the fences without overextending its reach.

Customer Reviews

Good old music

by
Sally himself

Am taxi brings me back to my days of listening to the fun music. Saw them at the house of blues and they had their cd on vinyl record which I thought was excellent. Great band great music

I am in love

by
Singing along Loud and Off Key

Buy this album! I have heard it all and truly fell in love after the 5th song on the album. Honest to god...good hooks, strong key changes and most of all good Chicago sound and style. It's everything I loved about music in the early 2000's and can't wait to see them live!

Buy this...love it and scream it loud in your car, apartment or in your head!

xoxox

Run, don't walk to buy this album!

by
Momaloopa

I NEVER write reviews-but after seeing them live in Chicago (with the Saw Doctors-who seemed old and pale after AMTaxi) my husband and I both downloaded their album and haven't stopped listening since. Their hooks, great songwriting, AMAZING drums...they're the real deal. Chicago music is back baby!!!!

Biography

Formed: Chicago, IL

Genre: Rock

Years Active: '00s, '10s

Originally known as American Taxi, AM Taxi is a Chicago-based quintet that takes its cues from the Replacements, Bruce Springsteen, and melodic punk groups. Frontman Adam Krier and bassist Jason Schultejann first worked together as members of Lucky Boys Confusion, a ska-punk band that briefly signed with Elektra Records during the early 2000s. Following the group’s demise toward the end of the decade, the two enlisted the help of drummer Chris Smith and formed a new power trio, eventually rounding...